Five

                                                                                Aimee

It had been two weeks since Aimee started at her new school and a month since she moved to this town, this small, simple, easygoing town that felt nothing like the life she had known before. So far, she was loving it far more than she had expected. The peace and quiet here stood in huge contrast to the bustling city life she had grown up in, and for the first time in a long while, she felt like she could finally breathe without everyone watching her do it.

Everything was going the way she had wanted. Her school life remained quiet and largely unpopular, unlike in her previous school. She knew most people were aware of who she was and where she came from, but since she never welcomed conversations that could lead in that direction, no one had been able to force her into maintaining the lifestyle she had spent her whole life trapped inside.

Aimee knew the majority of the students wanted to become friends with her because of her identity, just like always, but this time, she wasn’t plagued by the need to satisfy anyone’s expectations or curiosity, and because of that, she had managed to keep everyone at a careful distance.

However, there was still one variable in everything, one difference that refused to blend into the quiet life she had tried to build here. The one thing that, despite her attempts to ignore it, had somehow managed to intrigue her enough that she kept paying attention even when she knew she shouldn’t.

The piano boy.

Whom she had come to know as Jayden.

His lifestyle was perhaps the simplest she had ever seen, and somehow, that only made him more intriguing to her. Despite not wanting to, she had found herself observing little things about him, piecing together fragments she noticed herself and others she overheard from classmates.

She had never seen him properly pay attention in class, yet somehow, he always managed to answer the teachers’ questions correctly. Questions that even she, despite listening attentively, sometimes struggled to answer.

He spent most of his free time in the music room playing the piano, and when he wasn’t there, he was usually in the library reading.

The teachers all seemed to have good things to say about him, and everyone knew he was the top student in the school, despite living such a quiet, detached life.

Aimee eventually realized something else too.

Their classmates hadn’t truly outcasted him.

Jayden had done that himself.

No matter how someone tried to start a conversation with him, he either responded with one-word replies or ignored them entirely.

Cindy had once told her they all believed he acted that way because he thought too highly of himself due to his grades and how much the teachers favored him, so eventually, people stopped trying and began ignoring him in return, hoping it would force him to change his attitude. But the opposite happened.

He seemed to prefer the quietness.

Aimee thought otherwise, though.

She didn’t think he was pompous or arrogant at all. If anything, she felt like he simply didn’t want to emotionally invest himself in anyone or anything, perhaps because somewhere along the line, he had learned what it felt like to be disappointed, overlooked, or hurt.

Aimee surprised herself with how easily she had come to that conclusion when she had never even spoken to him before. But somehow, she understood him in ways she couldn’t explain. Perhaps because a part of her related to him more than she wanted to admit.

And maybe that was why his presence resonated with her so much, making her constantly aware of him no matter how much she tried not to be.

She often found herself standing quietly outside the music room just to listen to him play. Sometimes she came early before classes started, and other times she waited after school ended just to hear the soft sound of the piano drifting through the half-open door.

She had noticed that although he spent most of his time in the music room, he wasn’t actually part of the music club. He only went there when no one else was around. Eventually, she discovered the music teacher had given him a key because after school, he always stayed behind to arrange the room for them.

Aimee didn’t understand why he did it.

Still, she found herself silently accompanying him from a distance anyway.

And even though she could now recognize most of the pieces he played, she noticed he always gravitated toward the sad ones. The lonely, aching melodies that seemed to linger in the air long after the music stopped.

Aimee found herself enjoying them more than she should have.

Yet at the same time, there was a quiet part of her that secretly longed for the day he would play something happier, even if it was only slightly lighter than the others.

She sat in the cafeteria, absentmindedly watching him eat his sandwich, the exact same thing he ordered every single day. Aimee often found herself wondering whether he simply disliked the cafeteria food, or perhaps the nutritionist wasn’t doing a good enough job listening to what the students actually wanted. Or maybe, just maybe, he simply preferred sandwiches over everything else.

There were so many things she wanted to ask him. So many little things she wanted to understand. Yet whenever they ended up alone in the same space, especially around the music room, she never did anything except listen.

As soon as Jayden stood up from his seat in the cafeteria, Aimee instantly knew where he was going next.

The library.

He wouldn’t go to the music room now because the club members were using it.

Aimee hesitated briefly before standing and following after him. She caught Cindy furrowing her brows at her from across the table, silently asking where she was going, and Aimee only shook her head lightly with a small smile before leaving.

She had barely walked a few steps when she noticed Jayden standing in the hallway speaking to Mr. Lance, something she had observed happened quite often. She had always wondered why the teacher called for him so frequently, but she had never gotten close enough to hear what they discussed.

Soon enough, Jayden began making his way toward the library, and for the first time since she started school there, Aimee entered as well.

The room was as quiet as every library she had ever visited. She glanced briefly at the students studying quietly at the tables, but she didn’t see who she was looking for, so she moved further in between the shelves.

She peeked through one row after another until she finally found him.

Jayden stood in front of the history section with a book about the World War in his hand. The moment she saw the title, she immediately remembered that the field trip their class would be going on in two days was themed around the war. They would be visiting the old frontline and the remains left behind from it.

Was he studying ahead for the trip?

Why?

Could this be why he always knew the answers to the teachers’ questions despite barely paying attention during lessons?

Was this what his study routine looked like?

Once again, Aimee found herself discovering another thing she wanted to ask him, yet instead of speaking, she simply walked toward the same section, picked up a similar book, and sat two rows away from him.

Aimee tried focusing on the pages she had opened, but even though the words were in English, none of them seemed willing to stay in her head long enough to make sense.

Academic excellence had never really been her strength, and she had never cared enough about it to pretend otherwise.

Still, as she watched Jayden reading with such quiet focus and seriousness, she found herself wondering something she had never considered before.

Could being that intelligent actually feel... nice?